Brazil has occupied a sad third place since Monday May 18, with an official total of 254,220 people infected with the coronavirus, ahead of the United Kingdom which has nearly 250,000.
The country has registered 13,140 new cases in the last 24 hours. Scientists, however, estimate that, without tests, the actual figures could be up to 15 times higher.
In just 72 hours, Brazil surpassed France, Italy and Spain, leaping from 6th to 3rd place in terms of contamination. The United States (about 1.5 million) and Russia (290,678) occupy the first two places.
Brazil now officially deplores 16,792 deaths due to Covid-19, the sixth national death toll in the world. There too, the figures are very probably below the reality.
Hydroxychloroquine
As the pandemic advances in this country of 210 million inhabitants, the Ministry of Health is occupied by an interim, General Eduardo Pazuello, who succeeded Friday the oncologist Nelson Teich.
The latter resigned after 28 days from the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, who calls the Covid-19 a "small flu", defends the containment measures taken by the local authorities and advocates the use of the drug hydroxychloroquine against malaria, the possible efficacy of which against the coronavirus has not been demonstrated.
The Ministry of Health recently announced that it is in the process of developing new guidelines for treating infected people. "The goal is to start treatment before the disease gets worse and an intensive care unit is needed," the statement said, without specifying the type of treatment.
The current protocol of the Ministry of Health directs towards the consumption of chloroquine only in moderate or severe cases, despite the lack of evidence of its effectiveness and warnings from countries such as Canada and the United States about its possible serious side effects.
With AFP
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